community

Back in the Spring, one of my heroes was the speaker for an annual lecture series that we have a school. Each year we have a distinguished speaker for the week. Evidently, in the past, it has been rather dry and academic and sleepy even for the seminary professors. But for the past several years, it has been one of the highlights of the semester for me. This particular week had me leading worship on the second day of the series. I submitted my worship set and when the speaker saw that I was doing “Be Thou My Vision”, he called to ask if he could play penny whistle. Are you kidding? To make music with this guy!. I was thrilled.
This speaker is a champion of discipleship and community. At work, we speak a lot of community, of our community. We pat ourselves on the back for the love and encouragement that is found in it.
My teaching assignment has me spending weakly scheduled one on one time with at least 12 students. Add to this advisees and drop-ins and I spend a lot of time with individuals. The intimacy that develops over time in one on one student-teacher relationship exposes hurt, frustrations, struggles, sin. It began to concern me that in celebrating our community, we often overlook the hurting individual. When we talk about the importance of community, we often overlook the importance of ministering to the individual. Most Profs don’t have regularly scheduled time with individuals. We discuss the spiritual growth and development that can take place in our classes.
Knowing that we would be considering community in these services, I felt a intense burden to worship corporately as we sought God individually -to prompt for personal worship, confession and thanksgiving.
I have benefited greatly from being actively involved in Christian communities. I feel strongly the need for community in the life of the believer. But I also see how communities can lose their effectiveness and impact on their members. This is something that has taken place as long as Christian communities have existed. In Acts, chapter 6 we read that as the number of disciples grew, there arose a murmuring… Certain groups within the community were being neglected.

So I’ve been dealing with some specific areas in which I see us as communities losing sight of what we are set up to do.
We pray corporately, share needs, encourage one another and put on a good face. We so often rejoice together, but suffer alone. Misery loves company? Not in the Christian community. Joy and contentment are often misdefined in my opinion, and it is implied that suffering is unspiritual. Everyone pretends that everything is fine and the community is intentionally unaware that anyone is suffering. Even when we have prayer together, we ask our fellows to pray for superficial things that don’t even come close to the depth of the needs we have. Some of us wear each other out with scores of unceasing lightweight prayer requests. My cat is not eating well, my cousin Bob’s next door neighbor’s wife’s sister’s husband has just been diagnosed with dust allergies. Is it possible that these are just masks for deeper needs of our own that we dare not share with the community?

Communities develop reputations. A community may exist to disciple and grow individuals and success is observable. Over time the community is known for its corporate spiritual maturity and individuals who threaten that reputation are ostracized to protect the community, rather than discipled and grown. Community can cease to exist as a fellowship of like-minded people who encourage, hold accountable, sharpen, and empower one another and just perpetuate itself as community.

Communities may serve to equip one another to impact the world with their faith. But rather than faith being strengthened and exercised, it grows weak and soft from lack of confrontation and questions. We become more comfortable with the look of our community and thus offended by those who don’t look like us. We are shielded from the need to put on the FULL armor of God because we think the fiery darts come from the culture rather than the real enemy. We begin to sense that we are behind the lines and let our guard down so that we’re struck by the darts that don’t cause immediate discomfort but which stick and slowly release the poison of apathy, comfort and separation.
The community begins to serve to protect rather than to empower?

Righteousness by association. Being a member of a community doesn’t mean that the community assumes all responsibility for you. Having just stood in the midst of a congregation of worshipers does not mean that you’ve just worshiped. Being in a room of corporate prayer does not mean one has prayed, nor does it alleviate the individual’s need for personal closet prayer and communion with God. Individuals too often find identity in the community rather than in Jesus. We can begin to feel or even imply that association with the community means association with Jesus, and personal relationships with Christ are weakened. We develop a corporate or social aspect that implies that our issues are those of the community and that it is the community’s responsibility to address them.

I believe that Christian fellowship and community is more than a good idea, it is a God idea. We are besought to participate, to develop it, to maintain it. My question is then, how do we keep it as it is meant to be? How do ensure that it remains pure, profitable and God-honoring? What are your thoughts?